Backlogs configuration

Backlogs settings let you tailor OpenProject’s Scrum features to match how your team plans and tracks work. By configuring story and task types, burn charts, and sprint wiki templates, you can ensure your backlogs and boards show the right work items and support consistent sprint planning and documentation.

To configure Backlogs, navigate to Administration -> Backlogs.

Here you can:

  • select work package types used as story and task types,
  • choose how to display a burn chart (burn-up or burn-down),
  • set a template for a sprint wiki page.

Backlog settings in OpenProject administration

Story and task types

In OpenProject, work packages can have different types (for example User story, Task, Bug, etc.). In the Backlogs settings, you define which of these work package types are used as stories and which type is used as tasks in the Backlogs module.

  • Story types are the work package types configured to be available in the Backlogs module. These types appear in backlogs versions, such as the product backlog, wish list, and sprint backlog (i.e., versions). Work packages of these types can be created, prioritized, and managed directly in Backlogs.
  • Task type is the work package type that appears on task boards and is used to manage day-to-day work, for example during stand-ups.

Select story types

The currently selected story types are shown in the Selected type section. Click the section to open the select panel, adjust the selection (multiple selections are possible), and click Apply to save your changes and close the panel.

Select story types for sprints in Backlog administration settings in OpenProject

Select task type

The task type is configured in the same way as story types, but only one work package type can be selected. Click the Selected types section, choose one work package type, and click Apply.

Nota

Work package types selected for Story types and Task types must be different. For example, a User story can be selected for a story type OR a task type, but not both at the same time. It will not be selectable for Story types, as long as it is selected as a Task type, and vice versa.

Burn chart

Burn charts visualize sprint progress over time and help the team track whether they are on course to meet the sprint goal. In OpenProject you can choose which burn chart to display in Backlogs.

You can select:

  • Burn-down chart: shows how much work remains in the sprint.
  • Burn-up chart: shows how much work has been completed and makes scope changes easier to spot.

Sprint wiki

With OpenProject you can set a template for the sprint wiki page to standardize how your team documents each sprint. Using a sprint wiki template makes it easy to create consistent pages for sprint goals, planning notes, review outcomes, and retrospective action items.

For example, if you want to create a template page for all Sprint retros, follow these steps:

  1. Assign a name to the Template for sprint wiki page field, e.g. “Sprint retro”.

  2. Create a wiki page in the Wiki module of a project with the exact same name “Sprint retro”. This is your sprint wiki template. Configure it to the needs of your team.

    Create a scrum wiki template in OpenProject

  3. You can create a new sprint wiki page directly from the sprint drop-down menu in the Backlogs module. The new wiki page will be based on the template, so you can reuse the same structure for every sprint.

New wiki page created based on a backlogs wiki template in OpenProject

Dica

If instead of creating a new wiki page you want to link a specific wiki page, you can assign a pre-defined wiki page to a sprint version. It can be assigned to multiple versions. This wiki page is maintained centrally, changing it will show changes for all linked versions.